Complaint – Springdale School

Complaint: Dr. Randy TraniSubject: Criteria used by school staff to determine the question of putting the Springdale school back on line.

The question is only about the financial aspect of the proposed project. The Corbett School District, under the leadership of Dr. Trani, is pushing to spend money to revamp an older building to gain classroom space that could easily require expenditures in excess of two million dollars. The school board chairman has stated the spending is about saving the building, which is an absurd position to take.
The only issue from a financial standpoint is the best use of money spent. How much room can you get for the dollar and how low can you keep current and future operating costs? Everything else is secondary. It should be noted that the lead in proposal several months ago was $700,000 to one million, now it is $900,000 to two million, and climbing. This was a tactic that allowed for the discussion to start and the money to be applied for, knowing full well the first numbers were nowhere near realistic.
If the pushers of this project were objective with a true cost-benefit evaluation they would consult with an expert schooled in classroom space requirements, school size, fumding, efficiency, location, energy needs and local support. This is not happening. No one involved with the push to revamp the school has surfaced these issues. If they do not, then they should be dismissed. By failing to be objective in their research they could be obligating Corbett residents to costly debt and operating costs.
Should the plan to bring additional students into the district fail, the cost to maintain the debt would fall to the General fund, or to an obligation to the taxpayers in the form of a tax increase. At the meeting on September 14, 2011 three board members, Charlie O’Neil, Bob Buttke and Mark Hyzer, said that the goal is to save the building, but the goal of a school district should be to educate the children, not save historical buildings.
Rather than opening a location off campus, why aren’t the district leaders looking into adding to the existing high school, one that was built with a 15 year expansion plan and designed to be added on to? The high school is not an old building by any means and it would make more sense to add on to that building.
The current plan to take out large loans, upgrade a building that hasn’t been used as a school since 1996 and expand the district to 1,400 students is jeopardizing the future of the Corbett school district. Taxpayers in the local community are going to be asked to pass a new levy to build a middle school or high school in a few years. Do you think that will pass if you go forward with this plan? Taxpayers I have spoken to don’t support the direction the school has gone in the last ten years and feel it isn’t their job to house students out of the district.

As the Superintendent, Dr. Trani, you can leave if this plan doesn’t work, but the people of this community will be left to clean up the mess.

Stamped Received by the Corbett School Distrtict 9/29/11
Complaint by G. Purvine of Corbett Oregon